Regarding the System 8 proper, it is a very nice sounding synth. Verily.

Something that is pretty cool, is that oscillators 1 and 2 both have a supersaw. This means that you can tune two supersaws a fifth apart and make beautiful pads. That is something we can't do with a JP-8000. Very nice.

I also got STG to do a bit of sound design on each engine for me as a treat. I'm not sure if you guys know this, but that dude has a great ear and makes some extremely tasty patches (he actually did a bunch of sounds for the Sub37 release).

Last edited by ClavAnother on Mon Mar 20, 2017 12:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

I was just thinking about this some more, and I realized that I might be happier with the System 8 than with a real Jupiter actually. is that possible??

ClavAnother wrote:Just got home from STG Sound Labs. I brought the System 8 there to thoroughly compare to the Jupiter 8.

Basically I am now perfectly comfortable with the thought that I will probably not get the chance to own a vintage JP8. It honestly gave me a bit of a longing pain in my heart before, but I am totally at peace now.-----------------A few notes:

I devised a cunning plan to compensate for the Osc 1/2 crossfade issue which I posted about previously. More to come.

We discovered a problem with the System 8 that can be corrected in a firmware update: when you connect an expression pedal, it does not express the VCA, it attenuates the Master Volume. This is unacceptable in a synth that has on board time based effects.

There was one more issue that needs to be explored, but the Jupiter plug out arpeggiator doesn't respond to time division changes; the knob changes octaves - need to look into this further, but it could be because the synth is globally set to external clock, but we didn't have a clock source connected. Not sure if this is relevant, but as I said, needs to be looked into.---------------OK, back to the A/B:

There were instances where the S8 seemed brighter than the old JP. However, after we had moved on to explore the other engines, we realized that the VCA has a tone knob, and it is unconfirmed if the physical setting was reflecting the system setting.

Also there were differences when playing open voicings, and it sounded like they tracked the keys differently.

It mostly sounded like calibration variances.

STG shared a story where a friend of his that owned multiple TB303s, and also had experience with other people's 303s, while initially reviewing the xoxbox, remarked that all the TB303s he had ever used sounded slightly different to each other, and the xoxbox just sounded like another different 303. We considered that this could be true here as well, but nobody has access to a handful of JP8s.

So ultimately, when either of us turned away, or closed our eyes, we had no way of knowing which was being played. The exception was where I was aware that he was playing them, with the JP in his left hand, and the S8 in the right, the identical phrases where performed differently and that was a tell for me.

I found it most convincing when I played identical left and right hand phrases on each board separately, then the same phrases alternating left-JP/right-S8, left-S8/right-JP, you could not tell any difference.

Well, I've not made it a secret that I am a HUGE Juno 106 fan. It might be my favorite sounding synth, ever. I got the Boutique when it was released and loved it. Now, I have the S8 which is better in every way. The Jupiter 8 Boutique was never on my radar because I just didn't care. I wasn't concerned about the JP8 boutique, and I didn't care either way that it came packed in with the S8. But now that I've spent some time playing with it, the JP8 plugout is FANTASTIC. So, now I have the Juno 106 plugout - fantastic. The JP8 plugout, also fantastic. PLUS the native S8 synth which is wicked as hell. So, yes. The JP8 is super awesome. I <3 it.

The native engine is a modern VA engine, in that I don't think it's trying to sound particularly analog. The sound quality is leaps and bounds better than the 201, although it is missing the feeback OSC which is kind of a letdown. But, I still have my 201 anyway. I've spent more time with the native engine than the plugouts. I REALLY like it.

Unfortunately, it'll likely have to wait until overtime is over. I barely know what day it is. Instead of spending my only off day yesterday resting and doing nothing, I decided to rearrange and entirely re-wire my entire studio. What was I even thinking? THEN after that, I played the S8 until 9:00pm (that part I'm not sorry about). But UGH.